In 2004, when it was engrossed in the establishment of the worlds largest digital library, Google could never have expected so much opposition from the Chinese side after five years of relative silence.

 

In the past few months, led by the previously unfamiliar China Written Works Copyright Society, Chinese writers have shown unprecedented unity: they expressed their shock for Googles infringing activities and asked Google to give an explanation. Google certainly attached great importance to the Chinese writers protest and sent representatives to negotiate with the Society and Chinese writers.

 

Of course, there is also some interesting phenomenon in this incident.

 

In other countries, Amazon as well as Yahoo and Microsoft, who once planned to build library themselves, stood out and challenged Googles digital library, because they were concerned about Googles obtaining a monopoly. In contrast, there was no objection from Chinas digital publishing industry other than the right holders. Does China have no digital library? Actually, the digital publishing industry has been developing in China for 10 years. We can also tell this from the articles of contributors: There are a significant number of articles discussing the copyright issue of establishing a digital library. Googles digital library reminds us once again about another copyright-intensive industry in China.

 

With the Debut of the China Written Works Copyright Society, there has been a burst of copyright protection awareness among Chinese writers and a collective euphoria over Chinas digital publishing industry.

 

Google certainly could never expect it would be playing a supporting role in China.